The forest never truly slept, but tonight it was too quiet.
Liora felt it while stacking firewood behind her grandmother's cabin—the absence of familiar sounds pressing against her ears. No insects chirping beneath the leaves. No birds settling into branches. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, brushing past her skin and then pulling back, as if it had crossed an unseen boundary.
She paused, a log balanced against her hip.
The air shifted.
Cold slid across her arms, not sharp enough to sting, just enough to raise goosebumps. Then came the scent—pine and damp earth, familiar and not, threaded with something deeper. Something that tightened her chest before her mind could name it.
Her grip loosened.
The log slipped from her hands and struck the ground with a dull thud.
Liora straightened slowly.
At the edge of the clearing, where the trees thickened and shadows gathered like secrets, a man stood watching her.
He didn't move. Didn't call her name. He simply stood there, half-lit by moonlight, as if the forest itself had shaped him and then decided not to let him go.
Her breath caught.
She knew that silhouette. The broad shoulders. The stillness that wasn't hesitation but control. Even after three years, her body recognized him before her heart could object.
"Arin," she said, the name leaving her lips like a question she hadn't meant to ask.
His head lifted slightly. Amber eyes caught the moonlight, glowing faintly. For a brief moment, something crossed his face—relief, perhaps, or pain—but it vanished before she could be sure.
"Liora."
He said her name softly. Carefully. As though it might break if handled wrong.
She folded her arms around herself, fingers digging into wool. "You shouldn't be here."
A faint smile touched his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You said that the last time we spoke."
The last time.
Snow beneath her knees. Blood darkening white ground. Her scream tearing through the trees as his body twisted and reshaped into something enormous and terrible and breathtaking. And then his back as he walked away without looking back.
"You left," she said. Not accusation. Not a plea. Just a fact that still ached when spoken aloud.
"I was sent away."
"You didn't fight it."
His jaw tightened. His gaze dropped to the space between them, as if the truth lay buried there. "I fought where it mattered."
Silence stretched. The forest leaned in.
Liora exhaled slowly, forcing her heartbeat to settle. "Why now?"
Arin lifted his head. Moonlight revealed faint shadows beneath his eyes, the kind carved by sleepless nights. "The Alpha is dead."
Her stomach dropped. "What?"
"The pack is unstable," he continued. "Borders are thinning. And the moon—" He hesitated, breath catching. "The moon marked you."
She let out a short laugh, sharp and disbelieving. "I'm human."
Arin met her gaze steadily. "Not entirely."
The words rippled through her, stirring memories she'd long ignored—her grandmother's warnings, the way the forest had always felt closer to her than it should, the pull she'd never been able to explain.
She shook her head. "I'm done with secrets."
He took a step closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough that she could feel his warmth, sense the restraint coiled beneath his skin.
"I won't force you," he said quietly. "But the pack will come. And they won't ask."
Liora searched his face, reading what he didn't say—the effort it took for him to stand there instead of pulling her into his arms, the weight of duty pressing him into stillness.
"You're hurt," she said suddenly.
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"Your side." A dark stain spread beneath his coat, barely visible in the low light.
She reached out instinctively.
Arin caught her wrist before she could touch him. His grip was firm but careful, as if holding back more than strength.
"Don't," he said.
The word trembled.
Her throat tightened. She pulled her hand back, curling her fingers into a fist. "Then don't come back and tear open wounds you don't intend to heal."
Something in his expression cracked.
"I never stopped watching," he said quietly. "I just stopped being allowed to stay."
The truth settled between them, heavy and undeniable.
After a long moment, Liora nodded once. "One night," she said. "You explain everything."
Relief flickered across his face, followed by something darker—fear, perhaps, of what dawn would bring.
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the trees. "Then we should go. Before the forest decides for us."
As Liora followed him into the shadows, the moon climbed higher, pale and watchful.
And deep within her chest, something ancient stirred—and remembered.